When arts patron and friend of the University Lee Steinberg made her generous bequest to Adelphi, it not only strengthened the future of the ������Ƶ Performing Arts Center—it shone a spotlight on the vibrancy of the arts at Adelphi.

“Lee Steinberg’s legacy gift reflects a deep belief in the transformative power of the arts,” said Thomas Kline, EdD, vice president of University advancement and external relations. “Her generosity strengthens not only our facilities, but the student experiences and creative opportunities that define Adelphi’s performing arts community.”

The $1.77 million gift supports immediate physical improvements at the Center as well as permanent, flexible funding for its ongoing capital, programming and operational needs. In recognition of her extraordinary generosity, the University has named the center’s Recital Hall in her honor—the Lee Steinberg Recital Hall.

The hall is one of the five state-of-the-art venues at the Center, along with the 500-seat Westermann Stage at the Concert Hall, the Olmsted Theatre, the Dance Theatre and the Black Box Theatre.

Adelphi’s Rich History in Theatre

Adelphi’s theatre, dance and music programs have produced generations of artists, none more illustrious than Jonathan Larson ’82, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and composer of the iconic Broadway musical Rent. Larson majored in acting at Adelphi and began composing music for small student productions and cabarets, often writing about topics like AIDS, addiction and homophobia, which would later inform his renowned works.

“He came in like a spark plug,” said Nicholas Petron, MA ’70, retired professor and chair of the Department of Theatre. “My first impression was: ’Who is this guy?’ He was a firecracker.”

Larson’s legacy lives on at Adelphi through the $2 million Jonathan Larson Scholarship endowment, established by a bequest from the Larson Family Trust and a matching grant from the University. The endowment supports four annual scholarships for theatre students.

In 2015, Adelphi also launched the annual Larson Legacy Concert Series at Center to celebrate the next generation of musical theatre creators. It has featured performances by recipients of Jonathan Larson Grants from the American Theatre Wing and artists who’ve gone on to Broadway stardom, like Michael R. Jackson, who won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award in 2021 for A Strange Loop.

Adelphi also hosts The Poole Family Broadway Series, generously sponsored by Mary Jane ’62 and Thomas Poole, which brings Broadway legends, cabaret stars and musical theater revues to the center.

Empowering the Next Generation of Excellence in Music and Dance

Theater isn’t alone at Adelphi as a pacesetter for university arts departments. The University’s dance department became one of the first established at a college in the United States when it was founded in 1938 by one of the leading lights of modern dance, Ruth St. Denis. Since then, it has been home to many prominent faculty members, including , Paul Taylor, Norman Walker, Carmen de Lavallade, Jack Cole and Hanya Holm.

In the music department, Pulitzer Prize-winning and Grammy-nominated composer , has been a professor since the early 2000s, nurturing new generations of musical talent while continuing to produce critically acclaimed oratorios. He was honored as one of only five University Professors at Adelphi in 2004.

“One of the great things about Adelphi is that it supports its faculty in its research—in my case, its creativity,” Dr. Moravec said. “I’m eternally indebted to Adelphi for facilitating all of the work that I’ve done in the 25 years that I’ve been here at Adelphi.”

A Donor’s Lifelong Commitment to the Arts in New York

Lee Steinberg’s gift, which was received from her estate in July 2025, reflected her wish to support arts programming and performance centers on Long Island as well as her lifetime commitment to cultural institutions throughout the greater New York region. Steinberg, who briefly served on Adelphi’s Performing Arts Council, died in 2021 at the age of 106 and was posthumously added as a member of Adelphi’s Million Dollar Roundtable, which recognizes our most generous donors, whose cumulative giving exceeds $1 million.

In accordance with Steinberg’s intent, the University has established two funds to support the ������Ƶ Performing Arts Center—the Lee Steinberg Performing Arts Center Capital Fund, for immediate physical improvements, and the Lee Steinberg Performing Arts Center Excellence Endowed Fund, to provide permanent, flexible support for the center’s ongoing capital, programming and operational needs. This generous gift reinforces Adelphi’s reputation as a preeminent leader in arts education and performance in our region.

Enhancements to Center will elevate the experience of student performers, faculty directors, guest artists and audience members. Several capital improvements have already been funded through an initial $500,000 allocation, including:

• A comprehensive refresh of the Olmsted Theatre, featuring new lighting, audience seating, carpeting, acoustic panels and painting, as well as the installation of a new digital sound mixing console
• Brighter lighting in the Center’s second-floor dance studios
• New house lights and work lights in the Concert Hall

Beginning in 2027, annual distributions from the endowment will ensure that the spotlight never fades—empowering generations of future artists to push creative boundaries and inspire the world from Adelphi’s stages.

The post Leading the Arts: Landmark Donation Secures Adelphi’s Performing Arts Spotlight appeared first on ������Ƶ.

In recognition of her extraordinary generosity, the University has named the Center’s recital hall in her honor—the Lee Steinberg Recital Hall.

“Lee Steinberg’s legacy gift reflects a deep belief in the transformative power of the arts,” said Tom Kline, EdD, vice president of University advancement and external relations. “Her generosity strengthens not only our facilities, but the student experiences and creative opportunities that define Adelphi’s performing arts community.”

“The Lee Steinberg Recital Hall honors Lee’s commitment to a legacy of inspiring student performers and audiences for generations,” said Blyth Daylong, executive director of ������Ƶ’s Performing Arts Center.

A Lifelong Commitment to the Arts in New York

The gift, received in July 2025 from Ms. Steinberg’s estate, places her among the members of Adelphi’s Million Dollar Roundtable, which recognizes our most generous donors with cumulative giving exceeding $1 million. Steinberg died in 2021 at the age of 106. Through her bequest, she expressed her wish to support arts programming and performance centers on Long Island, continuing a lifetime commitment to cultural institutions throughout the greater New York region.

Planned giving has flourished at Adelphi in recent years. In Fiscal Year 2024–2025, the University’s pipeline of documented future support exceeded $40 million. All levels of leadership giving at Adelphi are shaping the long-term strength of academic programs, student opportunities and institutional excellence.

In accordance with Steinberg’s intent, the University has established two funds to support the Performing Arts Center—the Lee Steinberg Performing Arts Center Capital Fund for immediate physical improvements and the Lee Steinberg Performing Arts Center Excellence Endowed Fund to provide permanent, flexible support for the Center’s ongoing capital, programming and operational needs. This generous gift reinforces Adelphi’s reputation as a preeminent leader in arts education and performance in our region.

Applause for Improved Lighting, Seating, Flooring and Acoustics at Adelphi’s Performing Arts Center

Enhancements to the Center will elevate the experience of student performers, faculty directors, guest artists and audience members. Several capital improvements have already been funded through an initial $500,000 allocation, including:

• A comprehensive refresh of the Olmsted Theatre, featuring new lighting, audience seating, carpeting, acoustic panels and painting, as well as the installation of a new digital sound mixing console
• Brighter lighting in the Center’s second-floor dance studios
• New house lights and work lights in the Concert Hall

Beginning in 2027, annual distributions from the endowment will provide sustained support for artistic programming and facility excellence.

Steinberg briefly served on Adelphi’s Performing Arts Council and remained committed to supporting the arts throughout her life. Her bequest ensures that generations of Adelphi students will continue to learn, perform and thrive in spaces designed for excellence in the arts.

Advancing The Momentum Campaign: Extraordinary Impact

This seven-figure investment advances Adelphi’s Momentum Campaign: Extraordinary Impact, demonstrating how philanthropic leadership translates into visible improvements, strengthened programs and lasting institutional growth. Through leadership gifts like Steinberg’s, Adelphi continues its mission to transform students’ lives and reinforces its role as a cultural anchor on Long Island.

The post ������Ƶ Receives $1.77 Million Legacy Gift for Performing Arts Center appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Sidney Boquiren, PhD, professor in the Department of Music at ������Ƶ, set out to explore this idea. In his new work, “,” written for Hub New Music, instead of setting poems to be sung in performance, he created a piece that consists of instrumental reflections, responses and “sonic paintings” of poetry by Jan-Henry Gray, assistant professor in the Department of English and faculty member in the MFA in Creative Writing program, and former faculty member . Both are award-winning published poets.

“Three Meditations” continues Dr. Boquiren’s practice of engaging with the creative work of ������Ƶ colleagues and friends. “I was very much interested in continuing to collaborate with my Adelphi colleagues and thought of reaching out to Maya and Jan-Henry about using their poems to write this piece for Hub New Music,” he said. “The three of us had worked together in the fall of 2023 for the Fall Arts Festival, with live performances of music and readings of poems by our students—so I thought of this as an opportunity for us to collaborate and for me to explore how words and music can interact in a purely instrumental context.”

Expressing the Meaning of Home Through Music

The poems at the heart of this piece, “Missing Document” by Gray (from his book , published by BOA Editions in 2019) and “” and “Everyday” by Marshall, dwell on meanings of family and home, the anxiety of displacement, and love and hope. The three sections of the piece are performed by a mixed quartet of flute, clarinet, violin and cello without break, creating a quasi narrative progression from one to the next. When describing the piece as a “sonic painting,” Dr. Boquiren explained that this conveys the idea of music as visual ������—p�����Գپ��Բ���—depicted through sound—s�DzԾ���—that unfolds through time. Similarly, he says the timbre is referred to as the “color” of sounds.

Using this multisensory approach to composition, Dr. Boquiren said he tried to evoke the complexities of family life and what “home” means in this music. “There are moments that are nervous and anxious, as well as moments of deep sadness, and ultimately acceptance.”

Dr. Boquiren grew up in the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, spending most of his adult life in the United States. His works are often informed, influenced and shaped by contemporary social justice issues, his Catholic faith and his Philippine identity. Most recently, his music has been premiered by the Ciompi Quartet (Durham, North Carolina) and NOISE (La Jolla, California), and upcoming projects include a new work for the Grammy-nominated Palaver Strings. A MacDowell Fellow, Dr. Boquiren teaches courses in music theory and composition, and directs the Improvisation Ensemble at ������Ƶ, where he served in the past as chair of the Department of Music. He sings with The Ignatian Schola as well as the choir of The Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan in New York City.

“Tremendous thanks to Hub New Music for how they made this piece come to life with such conviction,” Dr. Boquiren added. “It was a deeply meaningful piece to me and it couldn’t have been in better hands. And heartfelt gratitude to Maya and Jan-Henry for allowing me to respond to their work.”

The post Music Professor Inspired by Faculty Colleagues’ Poetry Centered on Family, Home, Love and Hope appeared first on ������Ƶ.

When Robert C. Jordan, EdDCT, assistant professor of music and coordinator of music education at ������Ƶ, heard about two high school band directors who had successfully resisted competition, he was intrigued. Along with two colleagues, Olivia G. Tucker, PhD, assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, and Christopher Hathaway, DMA, professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Dr. Jordan dove into the story of Dave and Darin, who taught in neighboring Michigan school districts. As colleagues and friends, the two routinely discussed their dissatisfaction with the state’s school music association. During the 2003–2004 school year, Dave withdrew his bands from all forms of competition and turned the marching band into a pep band. Darin simplified his marching band’s programming and minimized competitive involvement. Then, together, they founded a noncompetitive festival for other high school bands in the area.

“We don’t have many accounts of instrumental music teachers taking ownership of competitions and festivals the way Dave and Darin did,” Dr. Jordan and his colleagues said. “Their mitigation of competition in music education represents one story of how two teachers came together to create a solution.” What led these band directors to divest from competition, the team wanted to know, and how did they do it? They began by conducting an oral history of students, parents and staff who had been connected to Dave’s and Darin’s bands in 2003–2004. Because participants were asked to speak at length about events that had occurred 20 years prior, Dr. Jordan and his colleagues used a theoretical framework that reflected the evolution of meaning-making over time. Their work was later published as “Two Music Educators’ Resistance to Competition” (Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 2023).¹

Building on prior scholarly research, the team conceived of teacher agency as “an emergent phenomenon rather than an action, personal trait, fixed variable, or opposite of structure.” In other words, agency is a live process that takes into account a teacher’s past, present and future experiences and relationships. “When agency is framed as emanating from an individual, we risk putting too much emphasis on the individual in both positive and negative ways,” co-author Dr. Tucker explained. Dr. Jordan and his colleagues said that understanding agency as the product of multiple actors’ interactions with each other, however, can provide a more holistic perspective.

After reviewing the interview transcripts, the team concluded that Dave and Darin’s agency emanated from several unique factors, including their “disillusionment with state organization contests, their personality traits, and the trust that students, parents and colleagues had in them from years of quality music instruction and positive rapport.” While this perfect storm may not be replicable, Dr. Jordan and his colleagues believe educators have much to learn from Dave and Darin.

Finding ways to circumvent structural constraints and create new, inclusive practices is key. “Rich theoretical frameworks, such as a dialogical view of agency, will help us discover patterns and factors that support progressive curricular change within and beyond Western forms,” Dr. Tucker said. Even when educators act alone, the sum of their collective actions can make a long-lasting impact. “Sharing stories like this may give teachers the courage to come up with their own solutions. The power of Dave and Darin’s story is that, yes, what they did was unusual, but it doesn’t have to be.”

Biography

Robert C. Jordan, EdDCT

Robert C. Jordan, EdDCT

Robert C. Jordan, EdDCT, assistant professor of music, focuses his research on music teacher education and pedagogical approaches to teaching undergraduate courses in vocal and instrumental methods. He is interested in music teacher agency as well as democratic, student-centered and culturally responsive approaches to music education that are both academically rigorous and practical with the potential to undergird a lifelong engagement with music.

^{¹Tucker, O. G., Jordan, R. C., & Hathaway, C. (2023).. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, (235), 30–45. doi:10.5406/21627223.235.02}

The post Winning Isn’t Everything appeared first on ������Ƶ.

In 2016, Professor Lyndon-Gee was invited to conduct the Kyiv Philharmonic. He agreed, subject to one request: that the concert would feature a work by Valentin Silvestrov. Lyndon-Gee knew Silvestrov’s work from recordings but hadn’t had the opportunity to meet the composer or conduct his work. “I was captivated by the beauty of his language and the complexity of his language,” he said, recalling his first encounters with Silvestrov’s music.

Silvestrov was born in Kyiv and “lived his entire life there until just over two years ago, when his daughter Inga dragged him, almost kicking and screaming, away from the dangers of the war,” Lyndon-Gee said. “He didn’t want to leave. He’s deeply unhappy. At 86 years old, you have walked your daily walk on the same streets for eight decades. You know the trees; you address them by name. You know every paving stone; you know every crack in every paving stone. You know the buildings; you know the smells. It’s your city. I mean, this is a tragedy for him to be forced into exile like this.”

Lyndon-Gee knows something of the life of an émigré, although he has followed artistic opportunity rather than fleeing armed conflict. Born in Rome to an Australian father and Italian mother, Lyndon-Gee has lived and worked for long periods in Rome, Amsterdam and Australia, and now divides his time between New York and Vilnius, where he has been a guest conductor for the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra since 2013.

The Conductor and the Professor

On the new recording, Lyndon-Gee leads the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra in two of Silvestrov’s earlier works, As with much of Silvestrov’s music, he said, a lament for a world that is passing pervades the two pieces.

“This is a man who tells the truth,” he said. “Many composers in all eras, I’m sure, but especially today, seem to want to adopt a persona or fulfill a role. And Silvestrov doesn’t. He’s completely, almost naively open about who he is and what his spirit is telling him. You feel his presence. You feel the history that has happened to him. When I recorded Symphony No. 8, I had an overwhelming feeling throughout, ‘Oh, my God, Valentin knew what was going to happen to his country,’ because you feel the sadness, the tragedy, the violence of the war that was to come. You feel it. And this is who he is. He is at one time the chronicler and the prophet of his own country.”

Lyndon-Gee finds that truth in Silvestrov and puts it into action. The ability to find what resonates with meaning in a piece of music is also what Lyndon-Gee strives to bring to his students—future performers and conductors, composers and educators—in Adelphi’s classrooms.

“When we interview or audition, we tell them what we have heard from our own students who have been through the four-year course and are now graduating,” he said. “The students whom we nurture in our course love that it is such a personally attentive department that cares about them as individuals. I think we offer something very special in the New York area. I really do.”

The post Music Professor Finds Truth and Humanity in the Music of Ukrainian Composer appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Now in its seventh year, Opera Omaha’s Poetry & Music Project invites students from across Nebraska and Iowa to submit work on a given theme. This spring, Dr. Boquiren was one of two composers invited to set to music poems written by students ranging from elementary through high school.

The project isn’t a competition, Dr. Boquiren said, but a collaboration in which the composers select poems that speak to them. “We’re not saying this poem is better than that poem. We’re just selecting what works better with our compositional perspective.”

This year’s cycle began in fall 2023, when Opera Omaha and the put out the call for submissions on the theme “Discovery.” More than 470 students entered the program and, ultimately, just over 100 of them submitted final work. Dr. Boquiren and fellow composer , PhD, then set about the tough job of weeding the submissions down to what would constitute a concert of under an hour and working with the young poets to realize their verses in song.

Then, in April, for an audience of the young poets, their families and friends, and literary locals looking to discover the next generation of Midwestern bards. A program book at the concert included all the submissions.

“The program is really wonderful,” said Dr. Boquiren, who has already been invited to return for the 2025 round. “It’s a yearlong project. In the fall, they have mentors who work with young poets across Iowa and Nebraska to make their poetry more musical. Then they submit their poetry for consideration.”

Finding Their Way Home

As Dr. Boquiren worked through his selections, he noticed a theme beyond the given one of “Discovery”: home.

“I created a song cycle,” he said. “There’s a theme across my seven songs. There is a connection to home. Either home is mentioned explicitly or it can be read into each of the seven poems.”

Then came the revisions. Dr. Boquiren met with the young poets in video conferences to fine-tune the songs before heading to Omaha.

“The changes ranged from really defining the tempos all the way to ‘Oh, I didn’t like the way this line went into the next line,’ and I had to put in a measure or two,” he said. “I had one intention but the poet understood their work differently, and it’s their work.”

What became the penultimate song in Seven Songs of Discovery was a “poem about self-confidence, very simple, five lines, so it contrasted well with the others while encapsulating the theme,” Dr. Boquiren said.

Third grader Jackson Rios’s brief read simply:

“I’ve grown, I’ve changed
I’ve learned, I’ve loved
I’ve hoped, I’ve needed
I’ve discovered all the things I needed to know who I am,
how I am, what I am.”

Out of the mouths of babes, they say, comes wisdom. And sometimes it’s sung.

The post Music Professor Partners With Opera Omaha’s Poetry & Music Project to Set Young Peoples’ Poems to Song appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Every day, audiences are immersed under the night sky at the . There, they watch presentations about the universe, including ones created by the museum’s educators, or attend family movie nights. And on the evening of April 4, the floor between the screens and the seats became the stage for the Cradle of Aviation Museum’s , presented by Adelphi’s Improvisation Ensemble, led by the group’s director, Professor Sidney M. Boquiren, PhD.

Dazzling visuals of planets, galaxies, moons and stars were paired with improvisational vocal and instrumental performances (both separate and together), and audience members were encouraged to participate through claps, snaps and whistles.

Dr. Boquiren, who joined the Department of Music in Fall 2004, said, “It’s wonderful to see this collaboration continuing through the years. Last week was Adelphi’s seventh year collaborating with the Cradle of Aviation Museum for Music and Astronomy Night, though only the second year that the Improvisation Ensemble has been involved as the featured group.”

Students Serenade Under the Stars

“What I liked the most about playing at the Cradle of Aviation Museum was being given the ability to create atmospheric music,” said Ava Azueta, a music education student whose primary instrument is the flute. “Up until this performance, most of our improvisation was done without specific visual prompts. It was really great to exercise the skills we’ve acquired in class by mimicking elements of the environment. Other than the venue being a planetarium theater, this performance was unique because I was able to play a multitude of instruments. In most other ensembles, we are generally confined to playing one instrument. In Improv Ensemble, we are encouraged to explore improvisation with our voices and a variety of instruments.”

Photo credit: Kerri Kiker, Cradle of Aviation Museum. The Adelphi Improvisation Ensemble.

At this performance, Azueta played flute, alto flute, bass flute, tubanos, hand percussion, glockenspiel and even sang. “Having the opportunity to play all of these instruments gave me more flexibility and creativity in my responses to what I saw in the astronomy films.”

Senior Donna George is majoring in music performance. Her voice is her primary instrument, and piano is her secondary. “The best part of the Cradle experience was that there was a chance to challenge our musicianship with different hand percussion instruments such as the claves,” she said.

Another student performer, Julia Gill, is a senior music education major who is currently student teaching at an elementary school. Similar to George, voice is her main instrument and her secondary is piano, and she performs on the trumpet as well. “I enjoyed having a visual cue to prompt our improvisations,” she said. “I also liked learning a bit more about astronomy and finding a connection between art and science.”

Other student performers included Katelyn Austin, Matthew Leibowitz and Grace Simone. (Ensemble Improvisation members Lara Campanella and Mario Mannarino could not attend.)

Dr. Boquiren looks forward to directing the Improvisation Ensemble again in Spring 2025 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. “It’s a unique opportunity to showcase the talent of Adelphi students and to also show how music and astronomy can intersect.”

Adelphi’s Improvisation Ensemble is open to all Adelphi students. Ability to read notated music is not required.

The post Music, Moons and Meteors: Adelphi Music Students Perform for Music and Astronomy Night at the Cradle of Aviation Museum’s Planetarium appeared first on ������Ƶ.

While she’s an exercise science major, Saccone is equally dedicated to her violin studies. So much so, in fact, that Stefano Miceli, an adjunct professor in the Department of Music and music director of the Adelphi Symphony Orchestra, invited her to join the orchestra—for which Miceli is also the music director—in a concert on November 12 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, performing music by Camille Saint-Saëns, Ottorino Respighi, Edvard Grieg and a 2015 composition by the Shanghai-born composer Xiaogang Ye.

“It was really, really cool,” Saccone said of her Carnegie Hall debut. “I’ve gone to places like All-State [New York State School Music Association auditions] and LISFA [Long Island String Festival Association] where the students are very skilled, but this was more like mature professionals. I learned a lot from them. I want to take what I learned from them into my role as concertmaster for the Adelphi Orchestra.”

While working with the New York State Symphony Orchestra Musicians, she picked up some of the subtler practices of being an orchestra member, she said, like having the string players practice matching their bowing movements and visually checking in with the other musicians in her section in addition to watching the conductor.

“I definitely was the least qualified to be there,” she added, “but I do think I work hard and practice a lot and I deserved to be there.”

Combining music and exercise science

“Angelina’s debut with the New York State Symphony Orchestra [Musicians] at Carnegie Hall was extremely successful, representing her skills and her ������Ƶ background,” Miceli said.

“Her approach to each class is incredibly serious as an ambitious college student who clearly wants to make herself highly performative during every session,” he added. “Angelina Saccone is not a music major but this doesn’t represent a limitation to her. She is an outstanding student in orchestra performance who understands the unique power of music to be beneficial to her own academic life.”

Saccone started playing violin in fourth grade and took to it quickly. She plans to graduate early after the Fall 2024 semester and go on to get a doctorate in physical therapy. She also sees music as always being a part of her life and hopes to play in, or even lead, a local chamber group in the future. She’s a fan of the Romantic composers—Brahms and Dvorák in particular—but was quick to add that “Shostakovich is my all-time favorite. I love stuff that sounds crazy. He was suicidal, he was dealing with a lot of stuff in his brain, and a lot of that comes out in his music.”

A Northport, New York, native, she said she was glad to find a school near home where she could pursue both her ambitions. “My parents wanted me to stay on the Island for college,” she said. “Adelphi had a lot to offer. It has a good exercise science program and a good music program. I don’t think I would have had these opportunities at another college.”

The post Student Concertmaster and Violinist Makes Her Carnegie Hall Debut appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Paul Moravec, DMA, is the recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Music, a Grammy Award nominee and one of only three faculty members at Adelphi honored as a University Professor.

A Day on Ellis Island

In November 2022, Carnegie Hall presented the world premiere of a new oratorio, A Nation of Others, by Paul Moravec, DMA, University Professor of music, that dramatizes the stories of immigrants passing through Ellis Island on a single day in 1921. While Dr. Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell based their characters on real figures from the historical record, Dr. Moravec calls the piece “a work of imagination that offers a musically dramatic way of experiencing history.”

Dr. Moravec chose the oratorio form, which features an exceptionally large chorus and orchestra, because it has traditionally been used to tell epic stories of timeless themes (think Handel’s Messiah). “The story of American immigration is a big saga,” he said. It’s the story of most Americans at one point or another, but I also think of it as timeless and universal.”

The piece, Dr. Moravec’s fifth at Carnegie Hall, is part of his series of American historical oratorios, all of which spotlight the experiences of ordinary Americans involved in extraordinary events and circumstances.

Life as a Syrian Refugee

Joan Stein Schimke, professor of film and video production, is an Academy Award-nominated director and screenwriter whose work explores the effects of war, trauma and displacement on families, communities and relationship dynamics.

In 2015, Joan Stein Schimke, professor of communications, and her colleague John Drew, assistant professor of communications, were planning to make a film about migrants. “When we saw the image of the 2-year-old Syrian boy who washed ashore in Turkey, a boy who was trying to escape war-torn Syria with his mother and brother,” Schimke said, “we asked ourselves: Why aren’t we making a film about what’s happening with Syrian refugees?”

The result is Saeed, a short film that Schimke reports would not have been possible without the dedicated group of Adelphi students who helped with production. Saeed tells the story of a family separated by the Syrian civil war and the lengths to which they must go to be reunited on Long Island. Since its release in 2019, it has screened in more than a dozen festivals around the world.

“I think people get so caught up in the terminology of immigration that they don’t see immigrants as people anymore,” Schimke said. “But seeing their stories in a film like Saeed will help people remember to humanize immigrants and hopefully lead to changes in immigration policy.”

A still from Saeed, a short film by Joan Stein Schimke

The Promised Land No More

The film El Padrino, written and directed by Terrence Ross, professor of communications, captures the experience of immigrants being hunted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents—and shatters the myth of the American dream.

Ross turned to Adelphi alumnus Christopher Alvarez ’20, a bilingual disability activist, reporter.

Terrence Ross, professor of communications, is a longtime downtown New York City filmmaker whose focus is on no-budget films.

and filmmaker who was born with a rare form of thanatophoric dysplasia, to lead the cast. Alvarez plays Eduardo, a young disabled man who, after his parents are deported, helps a young woman evade ICE and flee to Canada for safety.

Faced with his own physical limitations as well as the lurking horror of immigration enforcement, Eduardo decides he is going to become “El Padrino,” “the Godfather.” Although he eventually wins the day, the moral of El Padrino is clear. “This movie shows that even though America used to take pride in being a nation of immigrants, we are no longer a refuge for them,” Ross said.

The poster for Terrence Ross’s El Padrino.

The Border: Reimagined

In her multimedia art installation, Borderlands, Hannah Allen, associate professor of art and art history, combines inkjet and screen prints, video captures, and sculpture form to reimagine the U.S.-Mexico border. “This photographic landscape project depicts the border as a site that exists as both a symbol and as a physical place,” Allen said. “The work invites audiences to question the nature of our borders and, in our increasingly digital and virtual reality, consider their relevance.”

Hannah Allen, associate professor of art and art history, has focused on ideas of history and nationhood in her artwork for the past decade.

When the national debate on immigration exploded during the 2016 presidential election, Allen began studying the California-Mexico border wall on Google Earth. After several physical trips to the border, she merged the photographs she took there with Google’s virtual images. This approach allows viewers to simultaneously confront the physicality and the abstraction of the border—and invites them to consider how it might look and function in the future. “It’s just a fact that more populations will migrate and, as a result, the United States will continue to change,” she said. “I hope viewers will embrace these changes.”

An image from Hannah Allen’s multimedia installation Borderlands.

The post Who Are America’s Immigrants? appeared first on ������Ƶ.